Follow the crazy adventures of an Alabama cyclist taking on the Race Across America in 2015.

S Cove Dr in pictures

View from the middle of S Cove Dr shortly after the blind corner
There is a road near my house that drops 240 feet in 0.3 miles, which works out to an average gradient of 18%. Since it is relatively flat (-5% to -10%) at the top and bottom that means the middle section is well over 20% for close to 0.2 miles. They have been doing construction work on the driveway at the “commit point” of the descent so I decided to take it slow today and stop to take pictures to document the descent.

I discovered that they were doing construction work earlier this week when I came around the blind corner in the middle of the descent to come face-to-face with a cement truck backing into a driveway. Fortunately, I had also noticed pick-up trucks in the driveway visible before the corner so I had already slowed down and aborted the descent. I came around the corner, saw the cement truck and had plenty of room to maneuver around it on the wrong side of the road. If a car had been coming up the road, I would have had to scrub into the driveway under construction.

S Cove Dr elevation profile.

Before going any further, let me emphasize that this is an extremely dangerous descent. I document this to warn people that this descent should not be tried at speed, and the posted speed limit of 30mph should be observed.

That is the South Cove Dr descent in pictures. I did this descent twice today – once to take the pictures, and once at normal speed. But again this descent is super dangerous. Observe the posted speed limit of 30mph and stop at the three-way stop at the bottom!